Comments on: Am I a Bad Person If I Think The Prop 8 Ruling Was Correct?

By: DAM10N

DAM10N — Fri, 29 May 2009 23:00:58 +0000

You are not a bad person, Hemant, but you may be a less than thoroughgoing skeptic if you think it is wise to opine about this ruling without first reading Justice Moreno’s dissent. If you have already done so, that is well and good, but judging from your post (and most of the comments) you have not done so.

If you can read through that opinion and still believe that taking away the right to marry from unmarried consenting adults is not a major overhaul of the California constitution’s equal protection clause, well, I’d be interested in hearing your argument.

By: Roe

Roe — Thu, 28 May 2009 22:20:06 +0000

I agree Hemant the supreme court in cali did the correct thing, not necessarily the moral thing. The mistake was made in November and if you don’t like the decision that was made then you need to lobby for a national law that protects the rights of the lgbt community. Just like with most other civil rights issues if you leave it up to the states to decide then they will fuck it up.

By: Maria

Maria — Thu, 28 May 2009 21:45:35 +0000

You are not a bad person, and neither are the six justices who ruled in favor of Proposition 8. The real ‘bad’ people are the ones who voted for it in the first place

I agree, though I’m not sure if I agree with the legal argument

By: AxeGrrl

AxeGrrl — Thu, 28 May 2009 12:29:15 +0000

Given everything that’s been said here, it seems that this is the bottom line…..

Until California changes its procedure(s) regarding constitutional amendments/revisions, this issue of ‘a majority removing rights/privileges from a minority’ can happen again.

To anyone who clings to the idea that a ‘democratic vote’ is the way to make laws, what are you going to say when the majority consists of fundamentalist ______ (fill in your own blank here) who want to limit/remove your rights and privileges?

By: Tom

Tom — Thu, 28 May 2009 03:03:40 +0000

The ruling was not legally correct because it sets up a situation of unequal protection under the law, which directly violates the US constitution.

The court previously ruled that marriage is a fundamental civil right. This amendment takes that right away from SOME people but NOT OTHERS. Therefore, it subjects gay people to unequal protection under the law.

Further, by ruling that the gay couples that already married may stay married but other gay couples may not become married, it creates a situation where SOME gay couples receive the legal benefits of marriage, but OTHERS may not. Again, unequal protection under the law.

By: Epistaxis

Epistaxis — Thu, 28 May 2009 02:20:26 +0000

It's not very meaningful for non-lawyers to second-guess a legal ruling, especially since we already had our chance to argue about this when it was on the ballot. If someone wants to propose a constitutional ~~amendment~~ revision that would change the way the constitution is ~~amended~~ revised, that's something we can all talk about, but I live in California and I don't hear anyone proposing it.

By: Paul Lundgren

Paul Lundgren — Thu, 28 May 2009 00:01:36 +0000

Hemant, what really nauseates me is that the same kind of twits who vote for civil rights bans like this are the same kind of people who blithely refer to America as “the land of the free and the home of the brave.”

Bullshit.

By: hoverFrog

hoverFrog — Wed, 27 May 2009 21:33:07 +0000

So the court upheld the letter of the law but failed to uphold the principle of the law. They were technically right to do so and nobody ever lost their job by going with the safe option. In my view they should have forced the issue so that a higher court had to make a decision. At the very worst this would have raised awareness of the complete arsehattery of the California state constitution and of gay rights.

By: Infinite Monkey

Infinite Monkey — Wed, 27 May 2009 21:07:45 +0000

Am I missing something? How is California setting a precident?

By: Greta Christina

Greta Christina — Wed, 27 May 2009 19:49:56 +0000

Also, if scared white folks got together and decided to save the CA economy by infusing the system with cheap or even free labor, and also wipe out a lot competition at the same time by reintroducing slavery or some similar concept, it seems a simple majority vote could introduce that, as long as the judges then decide it’s not a MAJOR constitutional change.
And I have this feeling that would not be considered acceptable, nor legal, but I don’t see how it’s that different (just to clarify, for those who insist on misinterpreting posts, I am advocating for rock solid non discrimination, not for slavery, duh).

Well, to be fair, medussa: While I agree that this ruling sets a dangerous precedent, no legal scholar thinks it would go that far. The California Constitution can’t supersede the U.S. Constitution… and the U.S. Constitution explicitly bans slavery. What this ruling does is say that any discrimination that isn’t explicitly banned by the U.S. Constitution can be written into the California Constitution, simply by majority vote.

However, your point about the prisoner is an excellent one. If the California Supreme Court ruled in that case that marriage was an inalienable right, then they dropped the ball on this one even worse than I’d thought.